


Synesthesia

by projectseraphim



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Mind Control, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-14
Updated: 2012-03-14
Packaged: 2017-11-01 22:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/projectseraphim/pseuds/projectseraphim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>*spoilers for the end of Mass Effect 3*  This is a bit of a "fix-it" fic that I wrote to cope.</p><p>Alice Shepard finally makes it to the end of the fight, but what madness awaits her there?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Synesthesia

Shepard didn’t know what to do. She sat next to Anderson’s limp body and stared out at the battle over Earth. The admiral was breathing shallowly and his pulse was getting weaker. She called his name, but he didn’t answer, just slumped down even further.

She looked down at the planet and wondered what she would feel if she had actually been born there, instead of living on ships and stations her whole life. Would she have fought harder? Would she have been able to stop the Illusive Man and save Anderson? There was no use thinking about that now, all that mattered is that she was here. She had made it to the Citadel and the Crucible had been deployed. It would all be over soon, and then she could finally rest.

The sound of Admiral Hackett’s voice came over her damaged comm link, “Shepard? Shepard, the Crucible isn’t firing!”

Shepard struggled to stand. She had to make it back to the console. She had to figure out how to make the Crucible fire. They all came so far and lost so much to fall down at the finish line. “Wh-what do you need me to do? I can get to the console.” The holographic screen flickered and lines of strange code began to stream across it. “I’ll fix it, Admiral. I’ll get it to work.” 

Her head was pounding and it made it hard to concentrate. She could do this. _‘Just think of all the shit you’ve pulled yourself out of. Elysium, Virmire, Horizon…pull yourself together!’_ Fingers on the holokeys, she began to sort through the code, “Where’s the damn firing code?!” Her biotics flared up around her fingers, which only made her head hurt worse, she must have rattled her implant. “Dammit!” 

The lights from her tech armor were making it even worse; she turned it off before leaning down on the console. Years of tech school and she couldn’t find the firing code. She wished Kaidan was there, he could help…wait, where was Kaidan? He was right behind her when they made the run to the beam. He had to have made it, he had to… The pain in her head won over, and Shepard crumpled to her knees. _‘I’ll just close my eyes and take a deep breath. I can do this.’_

“Wake up.”

Shepard opened her eyes, squinting them against the light, “Who are you?” She got back on her feet and tried to focus. The light dimmed and shaped itself into form, the form of the little boy that haunted her dreams.

He looked up at her, “I am the Catalyst.”

She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand, “You’re the Catalyst? I thought the Citadel was the Catalyst.” Her eyes flicked to the battle outside, she couldn’t tell who was winning, it all just melted together. Shepard’s head was screaming in pain and she couldn’t focus. “What’s happening?”

The boy held his hand out to her, “The Citadel is part of me.”

Shepard gingerly took his hand and let herself be led for a few moments before pulling away. “Wait. I need to fire the Crucible. I have to stop the Reapers.”

“Well, I can help with that. I control the Reapers.”

His words hit her in waves. “You control them? Why are you doing this?”

Sadness washed over the boy’s face, “It was my solution.”

“Solution? How could killing us be a solution?”

The boy turned away, “It was a solution to chaos. As organics advance, they develop synthetics. The created will always turn against their creators.”  
Shepard couldn’t believe what she was hearing, “So you just kill us?” 

He looked back at her, “We don’t kill, we harvest. We can preserve the old life, in Reaper form, and make way for new life. Just as we did with your species in the last cycle. And now we must do it again.”

She shook her head, “Why?”

“The created turn against the creators. You have seen this with the Quarians and the geth. “

“No! They are at peace!”

There was coldness in the boy’s light-filled eyes, “It is a peace that will not last.”

Her hand balled in fists at her sides, “You can’t know that! We all came together when it mattered most! You can’t just wipe us out!” The pain in her head seared and she fell to her knees, “You can’t do this… There has to be a way. We built the Crucible. There has to be a way.” She was fighting back the tears and the pain and looked up at the glowing boy, “We will not die like this, there has to be another solution.”

The boy clasped his hands in front of him, “Perhaps there is. Come with me.”

Shepard rose to her feet, trying to push the pain in her head away. It wasn’t just her head, her whole body felt weak and heavy. In the corner of her mind, she heard a voice. It was far away, but it was familiar. “Shep…Kaidan, I found…in here!” _‘Garrus?’_ She turned, but she didn’t see anyone. 

The boy looked up at her and offered his hand again, leading her towards the center of the room. “We need a new solution, but we can’t do it alone.”

Shepard lazily lolled her gaze to the mechanism in front of her. It was where the Crucible connected to the Citadel. “Then what do we do?”

The faraway voice spoke again, “I can’t read this co…othean…she alright?” It was Garrus. She’d know that voice anywhere. Where was he? She tried to look behind her, but the boy squeezed her hand and she focused on him once again.

“You could destroy all synthetic life, Shepard. Including the geth. Even you are partly synthetic…”

Another voice crept in, “Shepard, look at…ple…don’t do this to…Look at me!” 

“Kaidan?”

The voice spoke again, “Yes! It’s Kaidan. Look at me!”

She looked around, “I can’t see you.”

“I’m right here. Snap out…” The voice faded away as she felt the boy pull on her arm.

The boy pointed at the Crucible mechanism, “If you choose to destroy synthetic life, it will end the war, but the peace will not last. Synthetics will be created by your children and it will start the cycle anew. But there is another solution.” He led her around to another side of the Crucible. The glowing blue lights embedded in the metal filled her with warmth. The pain in her head faded a bit. “You could control.”

Shepard’s face twisted in confusion, “The Illusive Man was right?”

“Yes. Control is possible. Though he could have never controlled us, because we already controlled him. But you…you are stronger, Shepard. You could control us, but it will absorb everything you are.”

“But I will have control, and the Reapers would leave?”

The boy nodded, “Yes, you would have control at the cost of losing what you love.”

His words made her think of the things she loved. The starboard observation deck on the Normandy, a good scotch, Kaidan… Kaidan! She thought of Kaidan. She thought of that night before Ilos, the sweat and the need, just crashing into each other. She thought about Horizon and her heart twisted inside her chest. That made her think of Mars, watching Dr. Eva slam Kaidan into the Kodiak, powerless to do anything about it…

The voices came back. She could hear Kaidan. “Garrus! Can you figure the code out?”

Garrus’ voice crept in, “…of it. Half of it is in Prothean. I just need another minute…” It faded out as quickly as it came when she looked at the blue lights of the Crucible. 

She shifted and pulled her hand out of the boy’s, “The Illusive Man was insane. I can’t believe that he was right in all this. I can’t follow the same path of madness.” She pulled her pistol from her hip and started to walk over to where she started. She would make this machine fire, even if it killed her.

The boy clutched her arm, “Wait! There is another option! There’s synthesis!”

Shepard stopped and turned, “Synthesis?” The pain in her head surged and she swayed on her feet. She was sure she was going to fall again, but something was holding her up. She could hear the voices again.

“Shepard! Alice! C’mon! Look at me! You have to snap out of this, the Crucible won’t fire! We need you! _I_ need you!”

“Kaidan?” She looked again, but still no one. It was still only her and the boy. “What about synthesis?”

She heard Garrus again, “What the hell is she talking abo…” It faded out again.

The boy pointed at the green beam of light. Looking at it made her dizzy and she tasted blood in her mouth. She tried to wipe it away, but when she pulled her hand back, there was not a drop of blood on it. “You could add your energy to the Crucible and join the synthetics and organics in new DNA. The final evolution of life.”  
“You want to force life to evolve?” Shepard stared at the green light and tried to swallow the taste of blood. Could they really force the evolution of life?  
“It would grant peace. Every life form would be equal”

“But it would erase us, wouldn’t it? Take away the future we might have had… If you make everyone the same…”

The boy’s face grew stern, “If everyone was the same, then there would be peace. No uprisings. No creating one race to turn against another. However, it would destroy the mass relays.”

Her head pounded, “The relays?” She thought about the relay she destroyed in the Batarian system. It had to be done. If she destroyed all the relays, could they rebuild? That made her think of something that Vigil told her on Ilos. _‘Before the Reapers attacked, we Protheans were on the cusp of unlocking the mysteries behind mass relay technology.’_ She hissed in pain, it felt like her skull was going to crack open. She remembered something else…an asari Matriarch. Aethyta? It all felt so far away. _‘I suggested we build new mass relays, and they laughed the blue off my ass!’_

She shook her head furiously, “No! You don’t do this to keep the synthetics we create from rising against us! You start the wave of extinction when we get close enough to discover the technology of the relays! _Your_ technology.” She backed away from the boy and the Crucible, she had to get away. 

Before she could even take two steps, she collapsed in pain. She could hear a Reaper’s klaxon like it was inside her own head. Shepard screamed, “No! I won’t let you!” She tried to push herself back up, “Kaidan! Garrus!” She opened her eyes, and she still couldn’t see them. “Where are you?!” 

Shepard stumbled to her feet as the boy followed her. He shouted at her, “This cycle will end!”

She turned and fired her gun fruitlessly at the boy. “No! It won’t end this way! Kaidan! Where are you?” Shepard focused all of her energy into thinking about Kaidan. She thought of the kiss on her palm at Apollo’s Café. That slow smirk as he flirted with her. She could almost taste his lips on hers, but she could definitely hear him.

“Shepard! C’mon, look at me! You nearly shot me. Garrus, help me!”

Shepard thought of Garrus. _‘Commander Shepard? Garrus Vakarian.’_ She thought about the fight with the Blue Suns on Omega. The gunship fired, hitting the turian square in the face. She nearly lost him that day, her heart jumped into her throat as she thought about it. But now she could hear Garrus clearly. “Kaidan, shake her! Do something! I’ve almost got this figured out! Who the hell is she talking to? I don’t hear anything over the comm.”

 _‘Focus!’_ She thought about them both, how they were always at her side as she tracked down Saren. They were right there when they made the jump through the Conduit. That’s why she brought them with her to the final push for Earth. They started it, they’d finish it.

The boy was still there, shouting at her, but she blocked it out. Shepard only thought of Garrus and Kaidan. If anyone could find her in this hell, it would be them. She heard the klaxon again and fell to her knees, but she summoned up defiance from deep inside of her, “Shut up! I’m not afraid of you!” 

Her squeezed shut in pain, but she could feel hands on her, pulling her up off the floor. She felt the warmth of breath on her cheek, someone was holding her. She forced herself to look, and hoped he was actually there this time, “Kaidan?”

Warm brown eyes focused on her green ones. It was him. His face had been cut and was bleeding, but it was Kaidan. Worry was carved into his face, “Alice? Can you hear me?”

The ache in her head began to die, “Yes. I can hear you. I can see you, too!” She crushed her mouth against his in a kiss. After pulling back, “You are certainly a sight for sore eyes.”

Kaidan smiled softly, “Glad to hear it.” He looked behind her to the console, “We think we might be able to get this thing to fire. Who were you talking to?”

Shepard shook her head, “Doesn’t matter. I’m here now.” She turned and saw Garrus at the console, fingers working furiously against the holokeys. His hands were burned and bloody, dark blue drops dripped onto the floor at his feet. The turian was in bad shape. She stood next to him, “What have we got?”

Garrus coughed and spat blood over his shoulder. He glanced over at her before looking back at the holoscreen, “I think I found the firing code, but half of this shit is in Prothean. Take a look at this.” He pointed a bloody finger at the screen.

Shepard leaned closer to the screen, it didn’t look Prothean. It looked like regular code to her, but that might have been because of the Cipher. No time to think about it now. “Yes, that’s it. It will send out a pulse through the Citadel. And the relay network.”

“You can’t do this!” She turned and saw the boy again. Both Kaidan and Garrus stared straight at the console, not even noticing him a few feet away. “Your cycle is doomed to end!”

Shepard’s face twisted in anger, “Shut up! You will not take our lives away from us. I promised I would stop you and I will!” She turned away from the boy, hearing the klaxon again. They had to hurry. She pushed Garrus aside and punched in the final command sequence. “That’s it! Go! Get back to the beam!” 

Kaidan took her hand as they began to run. They ran across the chasm and down the dark corridor. Garrus stumbled and fell. Shepard pulled Kaidan back and they both helped him to his feet. “Just a little further, Garrus! You can do it! Go! Go! Go!” She could see the glow of the beam that sent them here. They were so close. Garrus made it there first and jumped in. Kaidan spun Shepard into his chest and threw a barrier around them both as the fell into the beam after the turian. 

“…pard. Alice, can you… Help is on the… ng on.”

The world came back slowly. She could hear wind. And the sound of her own breathing. She slowly opened one eye and then the other. The sky above her was a light grey, dawn was breaking. “Where are we?”

She heard Garrus cough and sputter next to her, “I hope it’s Earth, otherwise, turian heaven is not what I thought it’d be.”

Shepard turned her head and looked at her friend, “Well, either way, I owe you a drink.” She laid her head back down and took a deep breath. The headache and the sound of the klaxon were gone, but she still felt like death. But if she really was back on Earth, it wasn’t so bad. She looked up and realized that she was laying Kaidan’s lap. “Hey there.”

Tears filled his eyes, “I thought I lost you again back there.”

“Yeah, I felt a bit lost.”

Kaidan looked around, “There’s chatter on the comm, the Reapers started to break apart from the inside. I think you did it.”

Shepard pulled out the strength to smile, “ _We_ did it, Kaidan. Couldn’t have done it without you.” She was so exhausted and so weak. “I’m just going to rest for a moment. Will you be here when I wake up?”

She felt his fingers glide over her cheek, “There’s nowhere in the galaxy I’d rather be.”


End file.
